The present invention relates generally to a turkey calling aid, and more particularly to such aid for simulating the sound of a turkey flying from its roost to the ground.
A traditional method for hunting wild turkeys, especially in the spring breeding season, is to use turkey calls of various types for imitating the sound of a hen turkey, thereby causing the male turkeys to be attracted to such sound thinking that it is approaching a hen turkey, rather than a hunter. Various types of turkey calls have been devised over the years such as box calls, a peg used to make a noise against a piece of slate and mouth calls, usually a diaphragm having one or more reeds attached thereto.
Wild turkeys tend to fly up into trees to roost as it is getting dark in the evening, and such turkeys tend to fly down from the roost to the ground just as it is getting light in the very early morning. When the wild turkeys fly from their roost to the ground they make a certain flapping noise and, it has been observed, that once the first turkey flies from its roost to the ground, it is not long thereafter that other turkeys in that immediate area will follow suit and fly down to the ground after that first turkey flies from its roost. The normal way to hunt turkeys is for a hunter to go into the woods while it is still dark and then wait until it begins to get light. As it is getting light, then the aforementioned turkey calls are used in order to attract male turkeys. In particular, it is desirable to try to get a turkey to fly from its roost down towards the hunter. Because of this situation, a hunter will typically try to call a turkey down from its roost in these very early dawn hours, often without success. It has been theorized that certain turkeys will not be fooled by these calls unless it has first heard a turkey fly from its roost down to where the sound is emanating from the hunter. For this reason, hunters have been known to slap their pant legs or their coat in various ways in order to try to imitate the sound of a wild turkey flying from its roost to the ground. The problem with this method is that it is very difficult to actually imitate the sound of a turkey flying from its roost to the ground, and furthermore the actual sounds produced by these hunters vary dramatically depending on the method used by the hunter, the type of clothing that the hunter is slapping with his hands, etc.
Consequently, there is a need for a turkey calling aid for the purpose of imitating the sound of a wild turkey flying down from its roost which is authentic in its sound, easy to use without having practiced extensively and being able to consistently produce the desired sound.